St. Edward’s University Lecture to Discuss Morality of Iraq War

On Thursday, March 31, Father J. Bryan Hehir will present his lecture “The Iraq Debate: A Religious Moral Perspective” as part of The Most Reverend Bishop John McCarthy Lecture Series on the Catholic Church in the 21st Century. Drawing on his personal and professional experience — including 19 years assigned to the U.S. Catholic Conference in Washington, D.C., where he held key positions involving issues of peace, war, military ethics and social justice — Hehir has stated that conflicts in Kosovo and Afghanistan qualify as “just wars.” He is expected to discuss his view, expressed in a 2002 paper entitled “The Unnecessary War,” that the war in Iraq fails a moral test of necessity. As a result, it does not meet the “last available resort criterion” of the just war position. Previously, Hehir led Catholic Charities USA and was the first Roman Catholic to serve as dean of the Harvard Divinity School.

• Who: Father J. Bryan Hehir, Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the
Practice of Religion and Public Life, Harvard University
• What: “The Iraq Debate: A Religious Moral Perspective”
• When: 5–6:30 p.m., Thursday, March 31
• Where: Jones Auditorium, Robert & Pearle Ragsdale Center
Reception immediately following.

Founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross, St. Edward’s University has been named as one of America’s Best Colleges for 2005 by U.S. News & World Report and was selected by The Princeton Review for inclusion in the guide Colleges with a Conscience. St. Edward’s is a private, Catholic, liberal arts university of approximately 4,650 students located in Austin, Texas.

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